TARZANA – A dramatic, nearly 10-hour standoff between the Los Angeles SWAT team and a gunman who shot and wounded a woman in a domestic dispute ended Sunday afternoon when the barricaded suspect surrendered.

The 39-year-old man, whose name was not released, barricaded himself around 4 a.m. inside one of the 115-unit condominium complex in the 18500 block of Hatteras Street in Tarzana after firing five shots at officers during a standoff that began just before dawn.

The victim, described by police as a white female in her 40s, was believed to have been the gunman’s wife or girlfriend. She remained hospitalized late Sunday in critical but stable condition from multiple gunshot wounds.

The man was taken into custody on suspicion of attempted murder, police said.

No officers were hit by the gunman’s shots.

Los Angeles Police Deputy Chief Kirk Albanese, the San Fernando Valley’s commanding officer, said police who negotiated the surrender were aided by relatives of the gunman.

“The (suspect’s) family contributed immensely,” Albanese said. “Despite the tremendous expertise of our people, it is amazing what will turn the key sometimes, so we are very appreciative.

“We use any tool in the toolbox to get it done. The last thing we want to use is force.”

The early morning shooting led to street closures and the evacuation of hundreds of residents from that complex and nearby condominiums, with dozens of those evacuees milling for hours beyond police lines – some still in pajamas and robes.

“I think every cop in Los Angeles is here today,” said Carla Sharpe, a resident of a condominium across from the suspect who spent her 62nd birthday Sunday stranded on a nearby corner as SWAT officers descended on the area.

Sharpe and her son Eric chose to remain in their neighborhood while many other residents crowded into buses to be transported to an evacuation facility at Birmingham High School in Lake Balboa.

“My friends were going to take me to a birthday brunch in Malibu,” she said, “but I can’t do that if I can’t get back into my home. I didn’t even have a chance to put a brush through my hair. Some birthday.”

Several residents of nearby condos said they were awakened around 4 a.m. by the sound of gunshots and kept awake by the noise from police choppers that began flying overhead soon afterward.

By noon, patience was wearing thin and frustration high on some of those residents waiting out the standoff from nearby streets.

Police said they will hold a community meeting in the coming days to explain to residents what happened and why the widespread evacuation was necessary.

At least one fender-bender involving those residents took place, while others wondered why officials had not dispatched the SWAT team earlier or fired tear gas into the unit where the suspect barricaded himself.

“I think it has to be what happened in the Randal Simmons thing,” said a resident who would only identify himself as Ricardo.

Simmons became the first SWAT member of the LAPD killed in the line of duty in the Feb. 7, 2008 entrance into a home in Winnetka by a man who had already shot and killed his father and two brothers.

LAPD spokeswoman Karen Rayner said the gunman’s surrender came after hours of negotiations between police negotiators and the suspect.

Rayner said it is LAPD policy to see if a situation like Sunday’s can be resolved peacefully.

“We feel that time is always on our side,” said Rayner, “and if we can wait it out, it’s always best … to err on the side of caution.”

Police also said Sunday that they were exploring the use of tear gas and other tactics just before the suspect surrendered.

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